Bookshelf
| can't find it |

| browse books |
books
 

| book details |

Seeing the Unspeakable: The Art of Kara Walker

By (author) Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw

| on special |

normal price: R 4 180.95

Price: R 3 971.95


| book description |

One of the youngest recipients of a MacArthur “genius” grant, Kara Walker, an African American artist, is best known for her iconic, often life-size, black-and-white silhouetted figures, arranged in unsettling scenes on gallery walls. These visually arresting narratives draw viewers into a dialogue about the dynamics of race, sexuality, and violence in both the antebellum South and contemporary culture. Walker’s work has been featured in exhibits around the world and in American museums including the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, and the Whitney. At the same time, her ideologically provocative images have drawn vociferous criticism from several senior African American artists, and a number of her pieces have been pulled from exhibits amid protests against their disturbing representations. Seeing the Unspeakable provides a sustained consideration of the controversial art of Kara Walker.Examining Walker’s striking silhouettes, evocative gouache drawings, and dynamic prints, Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw analyzes the inspiration for and reception of four of Walker’s pieces: The End of Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven, John Brown, A Means to an End, and Cut. She offers an overview of Walker’s life and career, and contextualizes her art within the history of African American visual culture and in relation to the work of contemporary artists including Faith Ringgold, Carrie Mae Weems, and Michael Ray Charles. Shaw describes how Walker deliberately challenges viewers’ sensibilities with radically de-sentimentalized images of slavery and racial stereotypes. This book reveals a powerful artist who is questioning, rather than accepting, the ideas and strategies of social responsibility that her parents’ generation fought to establish during the civil rights era. By exploiting the racist icons of the past, Walker forces viewers to see the unspeakable aspects of America’s racist past and conflicted present.

| product details |



Normally shipped | Usually dispatched in 3 to 4 weeks as supplier is out of stock
Publisher | Duke University Press
Published date | 6 Dec 2004
Language |
Format | Hardback
Pages | 208
Dimensions | 0 x 0 x 0mm (L x W x H)
Weight | 0g
ISBN | 978-0-8223-3361-6
Readership Age |
BISAC |


| other options |


| your trolley |

To view the items in your trolley please sign in.

| sign in |

| specials |

The Colonialist: The Vision of Cecil Rhodes

William Kelleher Storey
Paperback / softback
528 pages
was: R 425.95
now: R 382.95
Usually dispatched in 6-12 days

This first comprehensive biography of Cecil Rhodes in a generation illuminates Rhodes’s vision for the expansion of imperialism in southern Africa, connecting politics and industry to internal development, and examines how this fueled a lasting, white-dominated colonial society.

The Memory Collectors: A Novel

Dete Meserve
Paperback / softback
320 pages


Enquiries only


Survive the AI Apocalypse: A guide for solutionists

Bronwyn Williams
Paperback / softback
232 pages
was: R 340.95
now: R 306.95
Stock is usually dispatched in 6-12 days from date of order

Look around you is anything real or normal any more? News, images and videos created by AI are everywhere.

The Coming Wave: AI, Power and Our Future

Mustafa Suleyman
Paperback / softback
352 pages
was: R 295.95
now: R 265.95
Stock is usually dispatched in 6-12 days from date of order